As a part of all the crazy activities I tried to squeeze in before graduation, I went on a birding trip to the Gulf Coast with Bolt.

Over two days, we birded at the Anahuac Refuge, High Island, Galveston, and Bolivar Flats. I saw so many new things on the trip that it’s hard to even begin to pick a few highlights, but I will anyway:

I definitely enjoyed seeing the Purple Gallinules. They look like something that should be in some exotic location, not Texas.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many alligators as we saw at Aanahuac–and they were all pretty close to the road!

The rookery at High Island was pretty amazing. The Roseate Spoonbills we saw there looked almost as crazy as the Purple Gallinules.

I was impressed by the variety we could see with the scopes at the Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary.

I’d never been on a ferry before, so riding the one to Galveston was pretty fun. We even got to see dolphins the second time we rode it!

I was hoping to write more about this trip, but since Bolt and I are heading out to Africa on Monday, I thought it would be better to just get it finished rather than postpone it indefinitely. He’ll probably be more lengthy in his posts about the trip, so if you want more, head over to Search and Serendipity.

My best guess is that I saw about 70 life birds! The following is a list of what all I saw (including non-life birds), roughly in the order I saw them:

Day 1

• Barn Swallow
• Black-necked Stilt
• Snowy egret
• Short-billed Dowitcher
• White-faced Ibis
• Orchard Oriole
• Anhinga
• Common Moorhen
• American Coot
• Pied-billed Grebe
• Tri-colored Heron
• Marsh Wren
• Blue-winged Teal
• Northern Shoveler
• Mottled Duck
• Cowbird
• Nighthawk
• Purple Gallinule
• Catbird
• American Redstart
• Black-bellied Whistling Duck
• Rose-breasted Grosbeak
• Yellow Warbler
• Scarlet Tanager
• Bay-breasted Warbler
• Inca Dove
• Eurasian Collared-Dove
• Double-crested Cormorant
• Roseate Spoonbill
• Neotropic Cormorant
• Black-throated Green Warbler
• White Ibis
• Tennessee Warbler
• Black-and-white Warbler
• Summer Tanager

Day 2

• Laughing Gull
• White-tailed Kite
• Magnificent Frigatebird
• Willet
• Least Sandpiper
• Gull-billed Tern
• Savannah Sparrow
• Forster’s Tern
• Ruddy Turnstone
• Sanderling
• Black-crowned Night Heron
• Yellow-crowned Night Heron
• Brown Pelican
• Great Blue Heron
• Sora
• Sandwich Tern
• Painted Bunting
• Loggerhead Shrike
• Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
• Greater Yellowlegs
• Reddish Egret
• Least Tern
• Black-bellied Plover
• Royal Tern
• Dunlin
• Least Tern
• Whimbrel
• Piping Plover
• Semipalmated Plover
• Herring Gull
• Snowy Plover
• American White Pelican
• Wilson’s Plover
• Long-billed Curlew
• Horned Lark
• Caspian Tern
• Seaside Sparrow
• Common Tern
• Lesser Yellowlegs
• Clapper Rail
• Green Heron